Tuesday, 27 September 2011

The gaping hole that has been September has been taken up with completely empting my work room ready for a make-over! What a job it has been! I had no idea how much "stuff" I had accumulated and how much of it really needed to be thrown away. The problem is that when one starts to empty everything, you keep stopping - musing over what you find, asking oneself why on earth one bought it or marvelling that you still had some of that wonderful fabric you thought you'd finished! The books have been culled, some old favourites kept but the "how to" ones have gone to homes that still need them!
Most importantly I need to develop a new discipline about working once I'm back in my room - no point in all this pain if I can't maintain a tidier, more organised space! Those who know me well will realise what a steep learning curve this will be and probably believe that in 6 months it will be as untidy as before! In part it is that I usually have two or three different pieces of work on the go at any one time - an "art quilt" project, a hand stitched piece that I can watch TV doing and a bog standard one for friends children/grandchildren! So unless I'm very disciplined they are all out cluttering the place!

I have finally completed the September JQ, it is certainly of a better standard than August but I think June is the best of this quartet.
While the room is being done, I will have to plan the next 4 JQs - all needing to include buttons!
There are gremlins in the machine and photos will not load at all - I'll try to add them later.
12-10-11 Photo finally added!

Sunday, 4 September 2011

This will be the last of the compulsory text JQs and after my poor showing in August I need to be more on the button this month.
I'm going to experiment with freehand stitched text all over the background and then look at the different effects I can achieve over this.
My first samples have involved layering screen printed text on voile on my background in small areas and then machine stitching the text through the layers.

Once I had stitch the whole sample I then used a craft hot gun to burn away areas of the voile to give a distressed impression. This technique needs practice, 1st one was scorched, I now know because I has not cut into the voile to make melting faster.

Finally I used some acrylic paint through a freezer paper stencil and used a running stitch to outline them.

Friday, 2 September 2011

This is the least effective of this year's JQs - I have done so many samples but never quite achieved the effects I wanted.

The weaving is more successful and including some text within it did begin to give some impression of an old wall but I them tried adding some markal to tone down some of the background, not very successfully!I'm also not happy with my cutting of text stencils, this needs a great deal more practice if I'm to use it in any larger work.
Glad its done and please to now be working a different direction to produce the last text JQ for September!
It will stretch my patience this month as I'm in the middle of emptying my workroom so that I can have a new floor(one I can sweep and wipe!), new storage and a paint job - so "camping" out in any space I can!

About Me

I am a fabric adict. Its rare that I have more than a day away from doing something creative with fabric or thread, my passion for textiles has prompted me to set up this blog.
I have become an adict gradually over the years and now I have the time to devote to my adiction. I got here through the interest, patience, understanding and teaching of a number of talented women who nurtured my skills, fed my interest and gave praise and encouragement as I developed this lifelong interest. I'm so grateful to them for sharing and for helping me understand that to make progress one has to make mistakes first and then learn to put them right.
I am on a journey, beginning a voyage of discovery to develop my creativity and move my art forwards.

My Reading List - don't you just love to know what others read? This is now a rolling list

January 2014Michael Ridpath - Fatal Error

Alex Grey - The Bird that didn't SingOverviewI have never kept a list of everything I have read before - its quite fascinating to look back on. I was prompted to attempt the list because of a notebook belonging to my grandfather that I found when clearing my father's house. My grandfather had kept a list of his reading from 1909 to 1973 and he was a "serious" reader, reading in French, German, Hebrew and Greek as well as all the English classics and modern novels as they came out in the mid 20th century, but largely non-fiction. he was clearly a fascinating man and I am really sorry that I never got to know that side of him while he was alive.As you can see I can't match him, but he is an inspiration when I'm stuck and I am planning a greater diet of non-fiction in the new year. What this space.